


Anagram

by singing_to_empty_caves



Category: Mother 3
Genre: Angst, Family is important, and yeah claus is alive, i'll explain this universe more later, lucas and claus are like 16-17, wrote this for a class at one point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24779806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singing_to_empty_caves/pseuds/singing_to_empty_caves
Summary: Claus likes to run from his feelings, but Lucas won't let him suffer alone.
Relationships: Claus & Lucas (Mother 3)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Anagram

The air stung, and snow twirled gracefully down from the skies. Sunlight reflected off of the earth’s frozen blanket, a blank slate of untouched crystals glittering for miles.

Then, it crunched under thick boots. Crushed into the shape of feet--defeated.

Hot circuits, loud breaths. Their heat made the elegant crystals of ice in the atmosphere vanish. Dripping, dropping, splashing in bootprints.

Glaring light. The blank slate reflected red. A red eye, a light that meant power. A light that said _monster._ A light that said _you are not human anymore._ A light that said _your blood powers the battery._ And the battery said _without me, you have no right arm. Without me, you aren’t whole._ His shoulder was a socket, and his arm latched in the hole.

A gust of wind swept through and stirred a few flakes from the vast expanse. They stuck to metal and wouldn’t let go.

Maybe this was what “a cold day in hell” meant, because for all the elegance of the environment, the man’s heart was rigid. Frozen. Maybe hell wasn’t pain. Maybe hell was knowing pain so well that it didn’t register anymore.

Interrupted by a voice. Someone else.

“Hello.”

_Hell. Oh._

“Yeah,” the man spat. Acid on snow.

“What?” came the voice from behind.

“This is hell.”

The frigidity reflected right off of the person behind him.

"I thought hell was supposed to be warm?” the voice said.

“It wouldn’t be. Not for us. We grew up warm. Too comfortable.”

_Comfort. Able._

The man’s boots dug deeper as a gentle, melancholic laugh floated among the winter and ice. Not his. The other voice was laughing.

“I never imagined hell as something subjective. Although, I do think that if it were, we’d have similar ideas of it anyways.”

The man swept hair from his face. It was cold.

His brother’s hand was somehow warmer than he remembered it being. Maybe that was just the contrast between skin and snow. The body above, the blanket below.

“Hell, for me, would be seeing you go,” the soft voice continued.

The man appreciated his brother choosing to hold the hand that still had skin. He liked to feel warmth. Touch. His own hand was rough, but his brother’s was smooth and soft and delicate. The soft hands felt like love.

“Claus?”

The man’s shoulders relaxed at the sound of his name from his brother’s mouth. He didn’t realize his posture was frozen, too--not until the word thawed him.

“Lucas,” Claus said back to his brother.

Lucas’s warm, soft, smooth hand squeezed. The pressure sent blood rushing back to Claus’s cold, hard heart. Just a little. Enough to jump-start it.

“Walk back home with me?” Lucas requested.

_Re. Quest._

“Finding me was enough of a quest.”

“You took a path to the mountaintop during the longest snowfall of the year. If you wanted this to be easy for me, you should’ve gone to the grocery store.”

“That’s right. We need eggs anyways,” Claus remembered.

_Re. Member._

"Kuma and I gathered up some blankets at home. It was her idea. She knows how some of you gets colder than the rest, and even if she won’t admit it, all she wants from you right now is to know you feel comfortable.”

“That’s right. Hell is cold. Home is warm.”

_Re. Member._

“Thanks for remembering me,” Claus added.

Lucas’s hand squeezed again. “You know I never forgot you. Three years or three thousand, I’d never forget you.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Skin was warm. The metal hand was cold, but Lucas had a quilt made just for that arm.

Lucas was crunching snow, too. Bootprints. Some of them were softer, with less of the long-held frustration and more of the relief. Some--the parallel set--had rage in every step.

But there was less rage every day. The metal man was learning how to feel touch again, and how to forgive himself for three years of freezing. He was getting better. Sometimes, he fell back. Thought about the bad things. The angry things. The icy things.

When he did, he left. He went to be cold. Claus froze himself on the peaks, and every time he did, Lucas came and remembered him and brought him back to fire, family, and freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> This was pretty short, and I used it in a creative writing class with a bunch of details changed. Funny how your writing changes when you're being graded on it!  
> I figured I would upload something while y'all are waiting on updates from my two "big" fics. Hopefully this tides you over :)  
> Feedback is always welcome!


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